The Bird Or The Cage
by jupiter1313
Summary: A retelling of the events of Bioshock Infinite through the eyes of Elizabeth. After finishing the game, I wanted to flush out her perspective a bit more, and this is my attempt to do so. Hope you all enjoy it.


Authors Note: Now that I've graduated college, I've been looking for a project to work on to practice my writing skills. I've always loved the Bioshock series and I had the idea earlier today that, even if it's a bit ambitious, a fun project would to work on over the coming months would be a retelling of the events of Bioshock Infinite from Elizabeth's perspective. If you guys (assuming anyone reads this of course), would be interested in something like that I think it could be a cool project. Any thoughts? I'd love to hear them. Thanks!  
-Jupiter  
_

He'd fallen from the sky, like something out of one of my books. In fact, he was _just_ like something out of one of my books, guns strapped to his sides, splatters of dirt and blood (his blood right?) on his shirt and pants, a skyhook dangling from his belt...there was more blood on the skyhook. Had he been hurt?

I was terrified of him. He'd fallen from the sky for heaven's sake, straight out from Songbird's alcove! How had he gotten there? How had he gotten in my home?

I don't remember throwing the books at him to be honest. I'd just screamed and reacted. I was so afraid of him. I'd just wanted to run away (not that there was much of a place to run to), but I couldn't. It seems silly I know, putting myself in danger for something like that, but I hadn't had another living person so...so close to me since...God since I was a little girl. I barely remember those days. Sometimes it would get so lonely up in the tower, I'd open a tare to someplace else, someplace far away and high above just so I could watch the people below. I'd dream about meeting them, going to for lunch somewhere, and laughing. I watched them ride a bike down a countryside road once. Someday I'd like to learn to ride a bike.

After all those years of dreaming, when someone like him dropped straight out of one of those dreams, when he'd been so close, so very close, as afraid as I was, all I'd wanted to do was to just touch him. To reach out and lay a finger on him, just to see if he really was real. If I'm honest with myself, I didn't actually believe he was till I heard Songbird come. Songbird always seemed to come when I was thinking of leaving.

How had we even gotten out? He had given me a key...and then the rest is such a mixed blur. I remember it of course, but in a hazy way, like through the steam after a hot shower. Running through the crumbling halls of my home, seeing my lovely bookcases crumble to the ground in Songbird's rage (I'd miss them. I'd never even gotten a chance to finish Dante), seeing the viewing windows, the signs about a Specimen...about me. I...I don't even know what to feel about that. They'd been watching me? Why were they watching me?

I hadn't had time to even properly digest any of it before we were running along the guardrail up the side of Monument Tower in the cold and the wind, which seemed to scream at me even louder than Songbird. I'd never heard such a thunder before. Then everything crumbled and we were falling. And then not falling. We were streaking down the skyhook line, everything whirring by as it burned and broke apart, like mad fireflies on fire taring through the flowers, me clutching onto his hand for dear life, him jumping from skyhook to skyhook, desperately trying to stay ahead of Songbird. And then we were falling again. This time when I reached for him I couldn't grasp his hand and hold on. Then there was just water. And darkness. I remember it all, but thinking about it after the fact, it doesn't really feel like it happened to me. Who was this girl running through the halls like that, screaming and leaping over falling metal and glass. And who was this man and why did she...why did I trust him so implicitly like that? Because he had a key? I guess I just hadn't had a choice; I couldn't live there forever. I'd never see Paris that way.

I can feel my thoughts rambling now, like a train off its tracks on a great plain with nowhere to go. This all feels like a dream to be honest. How had he fallen from the sky like that? Could he fly like Songbird? I don't know. All I know right now is that the water feels good against my back, and the floating board I'm clutching to feels strong, and sturdy, and safe. I don't know where we're drifting too, or why I'm even alive after that fall, or where he is for that matter, but I can see a shore ahead and that's enough for now. Maybe we're floating to Paris. I'd like that.


End file.
